Romare Bearden: a Master of Narrative Structure

“Patchwork Quilt” - Romare Bearden - 1970. Cut-and-pasted cloth and paper with synthetic polymer paint on composition board, 35 3/4 x 47 7/8" (90.9 x 121.6 cm). Blanchette Hooker Rockefeller Fund - Museum of Modern Art (MoMa) New YorkRomare Bearden was an American painter, whose collages of photographs and painted paper on canvas depict aspects of American black culture in a style derived from Cubism. He is considered one of the most important African American artists of the 20th century.

“Romare Howard Bearden was born on September 2, 1911, to (Richard) Howard and Bessye Bearden in Charlotte, North Carolina, and died in New York City on March 12, 1988, at the age of 76. His life and art are marked by exceptional talent, encompassing a broad range of intellectual and scholarly interests, including music, performing arts, history, literature and world art. Bearden was also a celebrated humanist, as demonstrated by his lifelong support of young, emerging artists.”

The gallery text label from MoMa best describes the work featured here--and much of Bearden’s other works.

“‘I try to show," Bearden said, "that when some things are taken out of the usual context and put in the new, they are given an entirely new character.’ A strategy of fragmentation and recombination informs Bearden's approach to art-making. The reclining figure at the center of the work resembles those of Egyptian tomb reliefs and its flattened pictorial space recalls Cubist painting. The background is made from collaged fabric that the artist has assembled into a patchwork quilt, invoking a distinctive African American domestic tradition.”